It has been a very busy weekend for the first Iloilo Hobby Con event. It was very tiring but very worth the turnout. My role last weekend was on managing the Magic: the Gathering Iloilo tournaments and join the toy display exhibit for Iloilo Toy and Comic Collectors.

We started Day One of the events with the Magic 2014 Gameday tournament. It didn’t favor my side and I finished the tournament with a 2-3 record. The second day was on Magic 2014 booster draft along with Commander 1v1 game sessions.

We also held the learn-to-play segment with a few starter decks. I was also assigned to the panel discussion of Magic in the Hobby Con main program. Yep, that is too much work for me. Anyhow, I was able to join the second pod of the booster draft which started at around 1:30 pm.

I got a few insights on drafting in the set, but the few points really depend on what cards you’ve opened on the first pack. On my pack one pick, I somewhat agonized into picking Black because of Liturgy of Blood, but because of other Black good cards in the pack, I decided to skip that color. Instead, I picked Air Servant which is the only Blue on the pack. My second pick got on Green with Hunt for the Weak. The succeeding picks signaled me that Blue was open. I eventually rounded up the picks with more Green cards as we finished Pack One.

Pack Two got me Mutavault as the first pick, in which my two colors in the pack weren’t that good. The picks that followed got me more Blue goodies, but fewer Green cards. That got me the signal that the person on my left is also in Green.

Pack Three provided me the solution to finally fix my Green card choices. More Beasts were picked as well as the five mana Elemental and spells like Plummet and Enlarge.

Here is the final deck list that I’ve played. I called it Blue Green Flash:

Lands
1 Mutavault
8 Island
8 Forest

Creatures
2 Woodborn Behemoth
1 Advocate of the Beast
1 Air Servant
1 Elvish Mystic
1 Briarpack Alpha
2 Rumbling Baloth
1 Kalonian Tusker
1 Giant Spider
1 Rootwalla
1 Trained Condor
3 Nephalia Seakite
1 Messenger Drake

Spells
1 Time Ebb
2 Hunt the Weak
1 Enlarge
1 Essence Scatter
2 Cancel

The summary of the matchups is as follows:

Round 1 vs Herbert with Black Red Blue – Won 2-0

Round 2 vs Rei with Red White – Won 2-1

Round 3 vs Chester (the guy on my left) with Black Green – Won 2-1

I was happy with the result of the deck is very effective despite no Rare creature cards played. The counterspells I’ve added also mattered in crucial turns of the matchups. Also, Nephalia Seaskite is very awesome & like a pseudo Restoration Angel.

I am not sure if it was a good draft but I am happy that my card decisions offered good results. It was just my second draft of the set and M14 felt good to draft and did not fail expectations despite lesser cards to use for Constructed.

I’ll be posting more Iloilo Hobby Con activities so just stay tuned.

Thanks for reading and until next time.